Editing Alexis de Tocqueville (section)

=== On civil jury service ===
Tocqueville believed that the American jury system was particularly important in educating citizens in self-government and rule of law.<ref name="Civil Jury">Hans, Valerie P.; Gastil, John; and Feller, Traci, [https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/1328/ "Deliberative Democracy and the American Civil Jury"] (2014). Cornell Law Faculty Publications. Paper 1328.</ref> He often expressed how the civil jury system was one of the most effective showcases of democracy because it connected citizens with the true spirit of the justice system. In his 1835 treatise ''Democracy in America'', he explained: "The jury, and more especially the civil jury, serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit, with the habits which attend it, is the soundest preparation for free institutions. ... It invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy; it makes them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge toward society; and the part which they take in the Government."<ref>Tocqueville, Alexis de ([1835] 1961). [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/ ''Democracy in America''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070109091450/http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHYPER/DETOC/ |date=9 January 2007 }}. New York: Schocken.</ref>

Tocqueville believed that jury service not only benefited the society as a whole but also enhanced jurors' qualities as citizens. Because of the jury system, "they were better informed about the rule of law, and they were more closely connected to the state. Thus, quite independently of what the jury contributed to dispute resolution, participation on the jury had salutary effects on the jurors themselves."<ref name="Civil Jury"/>